Multiracial?

[asterroc]

Two thoughts on one topic.

1) Anyone else here multiracial? It occurred to me after some discussion elsewhere that I am not aware of knowing anybody in real life who identifies as being of more than one race, and I can only think of one person that I know online. So if you are multiracial and and willing for me to know, please comment!

I have set this post to screen anonymous comments, so if you want me to know but not others to know, then log out and comment, putting your name in the comment and I'll keep it screened so no one else need know.

2) If you are multiracial, what term do you prefer to use to describe yourself? If you are not multiracial, what connotations do you infer in words such as multiracial, multi-ethnic, multicultural, mixed race, mulatto, mutt, hapa, mix-up, or even "you may check more than one" (as in the 2000 census)?

A week ago I got into a conversation with T$ and some of his friends that wandered into the term mulatto, and then D-- asked what the more appropriate word was. T$ replied "mixed-race" and I surprised myself by realizing that I myself didn't like that term. To me it has negative connotations of being even worse than a pure breed non-white. I usually use multicultural myself, b/c I do not feel most of the obvious effects of having my race stamped upon my face. However the problem with using the term is that white often throw back at me that they're multicultural b/c their background is of different groups of whites. I jokingly use mutt to describe myself to friends, but I would never accept it from others - much like "nigger" is a term that blacks can use on each other but you can't use on a black.

Comments

[q10.livejournal.com]

i'm used to hearing ‘mutt’ used as a broader term - roughly anybody who's more than three- or four-ways multiethnic, even if all of their source ethnicities fall under one ‘race’ heading - so, under the system as i've encountered, i'm a mutt but unambiguously white.

[framefolly.livejournal.com]

I don't remember this unless a conversation like this comes up -- because it's such a small fraction and hasn't really been a part of my life experience -- but my mother's maternal grandmother was Vietnamese. Is that multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-racial, or none of the above? I dunno.

I think the RL friend who tilted my world on its ear was a college friend from Seattle whose mother is Chinese and whose father is Japanese. I know that pairing is actually not that uncommon given recent history, but also given recent history, it's fairly taboo. I didn't realize how much I subscribed to the prejudice that this was a WHOA BAD WRONG pairing until I met her. Of course, very quickly I smacked myself over the head metaphorically many times, and have not had to relearn the lesson (so far) ;) .

A significant fraction -- I might say 1/5th -- of my UCLA students self-identified as bi- or multi-racial -- black/Asian, Asian/white, Latino/black, Latino/Asian, black/white, etc. It was particularly exciting for me because a good half of them knew what it's like to be immersed in two languages, which was very useful in teaching film and freshman composition.

[oh-chris.livejournal.com]

i usually go by "biracial". i'm not really sure how much west indian blood is in my family: my grandfather and aunt look it to a great deal, and my skin is definitely dark (although more of a "light coffee"), but my grandfather's mother was light-skinned. I never knew, or even saw a picture of either great-grandfather, so i don't know from their skin tones. Both of my paternal grandparents were born in Jamaica.
I mostly go by biracial or whatever because i do, in fact, look it. My sister shares my father's Jamaican blood, but is light-skinned, brown-haired, and blue-eyed. If i looked like her, i'd probably identify as "white" because i could, in fact, pass. My dad can usually pass, as can his brothers and one sister; his other sister, as mentioned, is dark like me.
I'll also use "mutt", "mixed-race" and sometimes "half-breed" disparagingly. I checked "white" and "black" on the 2000 census for lack of a better option.

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

I personally hate to self identify by "race". I am almost pure European, but from very scattered areas. Paternal grandmother was a Polish immigrant, Paternal grandfather a German one. Maternal grandfather Swedish, but US born, though his grandfather, in Sweden, had married a French "Princess" while he was out to sea as a pirate, so my great-great grandmother would be French (though of very doubtful parentage). Maternal grandmother's family has been on this continent since being kicked out of Newgate prison in 1640, and there is certainly some African and Native American blood in there somewhere. Stir well and you get me.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

As q10 pointed out, 'race' is in large part a cultural construction.

150 years and more ago, my ancestry would have been considered 'mutt' category: Scots, Irish, English, German. (There used to be quite a lot of discrimination against Irish in the early days of their large-scale immigration to the US, for example.) Now, of course, my 'race' is probably considered by most to be effectively 'white American'; my ancestors have all been here for quite some time (back at least four generations, I think). There's really no current connection between my family and any of these ethnicities other than those we've constructed ourselves (e.g., my choice of last name).

I've been mistaken for (ethnic) Jewish before, but that's probably a combination of (a) ignorance, (b) dark hair, (c) penchant for academics, and (d) knowledge of a couple of songs in Hebrew. :)

[spazzy444.livejournal.com]

While I am a white mutt (German, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, English and Dutch from my mom. Ukrainian from my dad - and if you want to get really technical I am a Canadian-American), I cannot answer the specific question you are asking. However my brother married a Vietnamese woman and they have a son. I'd be more than happy to ask what they intend on raising him using. My brother already made one comment that said "Our children will be mutli-racial".

In my area (TX) hispanic x white is very common. I usually hear these people refer to themselves as mixed or biracial.

On places where there is a check mark for your race I had a professor tell my class to NEVER EVER put anything but "other", you can be a European-American, Aggie, Mutt or Pastel-Skinned for all intents an purposes. Checking other opens a lot more pathways apparently.

[l0stmyrel1g10n.livejournal.com]

In a discussion about privilege, I call myself white, because in that context everyone knows what it implies. I would be labeled as white by any random passerby. Outside of that, I try not to label myself. Anyone with Russian ancestry is probably at least part Asian; is it enough for me to say I'm of mixed race? What about being Jewish?

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

i dislike the abuse of the term 'multicultural' to mean 'multiracial', because to me ethnicity and place of origin are not the same thing as culture. i wouldn't even apply the term 'multicultural' to a person, actually. mulatto i'd find offensive simply because it has associated itself with a time when it was a value judgement (similarly 'octoroon' and that spectrum of words). 'mutt' is offensive because of its association with dogs. never heard 'hapa' or 'mix-up', 'mixed-race' and 'multiethnic' both seem like clean, connotation-free, descriptive words to me. 'you may check more than one' is, of course, a beautiful, engineer's solution.